The need and/or desire for exercise has long been recognized, and various apparatus have heretofore been developed in an attempt to satisfy such needs or desires.
One of the better forms of exercise has been found to be swimming, and both commercial and private swimming pools are now commonly found. Such pools, however, are normally fairly large and costly to properly maintain and are not sufficiently private for at least some users. In addition, while small water retaining areas have been developed, such areas are not adequate for swimming or are, at least, not adequate to enable a swimmer to satisfactorily exercise or train.
While some attention has also been given to developing systems that enable a swimmer to swim in place, such systems have either been used in conjunction with existing pools, have not enabled the swimmer to utilize normal swimming strokes, and/or have not been developed with a view toward providing a minimal amount of swimming area, lacked attractiveness, have not been adaptable to use in conjunction with swimmer comfort and/or utility features, have been limited to water jets the swimmer to swim against, and/or have been costly.
In-place swimming apparatus for use in existing pools is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,109,905, 4,114,874, 4,218,056, 4,247,096, 4,248,419, while a device for use in a restricted water area is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,170,799.